A sharp eye for a killer series

He snapped up TV right to the Thorne crime novels; now he plays the lead. Smart move, David Morrissey. Is this the new Morse?

OT Fagbenle, David Morrissey and Sandra Oh star in new cop drama Thorne (Sky 1) To
say Sleepyhead is dark is like saying that Psycho features a bit of a plot
twist or that Se7en has a slightly unpleasant ending. This crime thriller
kicks off like a phone-it-in serial-killer tale — bodies wash up, common
links and mysterious patterns emerge — then takes a turn that makes you long
affectionately for a bit of good old serial killing. Death, you feel, would
be a welcome relief.

Sleepyhead is Sky 1’s debut Tom Thorne drama, based on Mark Billingham’s
series of crime novels about the laconic, damaged detective. As Thorne
unpicks the clues of this first story, it gradually becomes clear that the
murderer isn’t actually trying to murder. It’s worse than that. He’s trying
to inject women with a poison that will paralyse every muscle in their body,
but keep their minds alive, so they can never run away from him. If that
weren’t unsettling enough, one of